Sadhu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Spiritual use of cannabis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cannabis has a long use in India not only as a medicine but also as a sacrament of lord Shiva. It's an important spiritual tool of the priests and sadhus who are wandering monks. It is often smoked in a chillum pipe to aide in meditation and yoga in general as well as devotion to Shiva.
I don't think the association of ganja with Shiva is some new modern invention.....ancient texts do associate ganja with Shiva. Now I'm not so sure about smoking cannabis though.....eating cannabis has been going on for thousands of years for sure. It could be that smoking cannabis developed in the last 500 years after the method of smoking was introduced from the western hemisphere to Eurasia through the knowledge of smoking tobacco. But this may not necessarily be true since chillums come from the Indian subcontinent and probably originate thousands of years ago. What else could they have been smoking in those (perhaps dmt yopo snuffs?)? Plus if you are a wandering sadhu carrying around a pot to cook the cannabis into a drink would be a lot more cumbersome than carrying around a small chillum pipe to smoke it. And just look at Shiva in all his pics and he clearly looks stoned while meditating with his half open eyes. In fact half-opened eye meditation may be an idea inspired by the ganja experience.
I personally use ganja for spiritual uses as well.......it cranks meditation up many notches. Normal meditation is ok and all but it's nothing compared to meditating on ganja.....light visualizing meditation for example is completley taken to a new level especially with the increase ability to focus on such light when your eyes are close. Mantra meditation works very well too as you can have Aum repeated in your head quite well without distractions. There aren't many advantages to breathing-type meditations though, like the other types have....but it's still a lot easier to concentrate on your breath after a few puffs of that holy ganja smoke.
As for the identity of Soma......there's a good chance it is cannabis. After all it's such a widley use spiritual sacrament in India. And it was imported from the northern parts of the subcontinent like the Hindu Kush or the Himalayas. In high doses it definitely can produce the intense dream like states often attributed to soma. I find it unlikely that soma was khat or guarana like substances or plants since those just stimulate....there aren't really any spiritual visions or closed-eyed visuals attributable to a true entheogen. While opium has some of the the relaxing mood lifting effects of cannabis, it like the stimulant plants and substances mentioned has no inherent spiritual feel to it. It's a depressant primarily and only, unlike cannabis which has some psychedelic/hallucinogenic effects....especially at higher doses. Salvia is definitely a pure hallucinogen and nothing else but I don't think Salvia was known or grown in India.....it actually originates from central and southern Mexico.
Now as far as studies done on the possible candidate for soma.....I think R. Gordon Wasson stated that given the description it was most likely indicated it was a mushroom...as it wasn't considered a very leafy or creeping plant. I can see how this can work too.....however Wasson suggests it was Amanita muscaria mushrooms. While it is a hallucinogen I do doubt it could be the Soma talked about as it's quite an intoxicating sickening agent and doesn't induce intense dream-like visions that are attributable to Soma......unless perhaps if you drink it from the piss of the shaman which is the tradition in Siberia, lol.
I do think if it is a mushroom it's far more likely to be psilocybin mushrooms since after all many of these shrooms contain the
yellow or tawny tops and long stalks described in the various descriptions of soma. On top of that many of these mushrooms grow in cow dung. Why else besides the other known reasons could cows have gotten their sacred status? It's very likely it had something to do with soma growing from their excrements. While edible mushrooms of any kind are often forbidden in modern Hinduism and for hundreds of years.....this decree only comes later on.....in earlier times mushrooms were allowed to be consumed. In fact it was first only banned for lower castes I think due to the knowledge of it being considered only fit for Brahmins.
Dunno it depends. It could even be one of the DMT-containing plants. I'm thinking though based off of historical accounts that if it is a plant it was probably cannabis, and if it was a mushroom it was probably psilocybin.
You have the Rastafarians which call it "The holy herb" then you have some kid down the road who calls it "Sh*t" There is a certain degree of difference between these people.... Yet they are using the same plant!? Yes.... There is a different attitude and way of looking to the plant.... There are some that use it just to get mashed up, and then there are those that use it for healing and pain killing, then those whom use it for meditation.... And then there are those that use it for rituals.... 
